The new car: Series 1: Episode 4

[The last we shall see of our once trusty C-Max. Third from the right]

This morning, up bright and early to go to see a car salesman about a new car. Old car failed to start, so called up a taxi from our local taxi company - a company which has, so far, survived the onslaught of Uber.

Two taxis in all, one a smart new electric car, one a smart new hybrid, both automatic and both, I think, from Toyota. Both driven by young men who probably came from somewhere east of Suez. One did not seem to have much English, the other spoke it quite well, having been here for around 10 years, having arrived when he was 14 years old. He said that he had no family here, so it must have been hard at the beginning - but he seemed to be managing now. It occurred to me that driving a taxi, given modern technology for hiring one and for driving one, is perhaps not such a bad thing for someone with only a rudimentary grasp of the local language to be doing: the technology more or does away for the need for knowledge of either language or location.

Both drivers preferred their telephones for mapping purposes, this despite both cars probably being capable of doing maps under their own steam. Perhaps the drivers preferred to keep all the real stuff on their own telephones?

Once home again, we decided that it was time for the C-Max to go: we did not want a car that could not be relied on.

Luckily the C-Max was now working, so the next step was to ask the Internet about getting rid of old cars. The first 'we buy any car' site that I tried was not interested in a fifteen year old Ford with 60,000 miles on the clock - and that was before I got to telling it anything about the condition of the car. The second, the people at reference 2, was more promising. They had a branch near Tolworth Tower and having gathered the documentation needed, we headed off for them after lunch. Documentation including what we had in the way of service records (from Epsom Autos) - which were, in the event, checked.

To find that there was some kind of blockage at the top of Ruxley Lane, necessitating a detour through Worcester Park. But with the support of telephonic gmaps we made it to the front gate. To find that it was actually the front gate to some kind of football operation called 'GOALS' and you needed to know the code to get it. Or to phone someone up. This last did not work, but eventually a young man in a car behind us jumped out and did the necessary with the code post. After which we learned webuyanycar operates out of a shed in the car park.

But operate it did, and after half an hour or so we emerged having sold our car. Not for very much, but then, considering its condition, both external and internal, we were not expecting very much - if, indeed, anything.

Pit-stop in the lounge area of the football operation, including, in my case a celebration bottle of Corona. I declined the alcohol free version offered by the same people in a fairly similar bottle. A big crowd of footballers, coming off their session, was boys, but there were quite a lot of girls and young ladies round about too.

Then out into the light drizzle to find a 406 bus back to Epsom. Which turned up just a few minutes after we arrived at the bus stop - probably having guessed wrong about the best direction to take from GOALS.

On the way, passing the Lidl HQ which I knew from my Jubilee Way days. The entrance to which is just beyond the tree to the left in the snap above.

And a fine display of blackberries. On which subject, I take this opportunity to record that, taking the volume of blackberries still left in the freezer into account, we have decided to pass on picking and freezing any more this year. Start up again next year, when we have cleared out the ones we have already got.

And a fine display of roses offered by a house behind the bus stop.

Home to read in the piece at reference 4 about how it is time the people who run this country came clean with the public and told them that their water bills are going to have to go up so that the crumbling water infrastructure can be put into decent - and safe - shape. Told them that there is no such thing as a free lunch. I then thought that, all things considered, this might not be such a bad place to start this story, to start softening the public up to the non-existence of free lunches generally - and to raise the taxes to pay for the public services that nearly all of us say that we need.

Then again, passing one of the big supermarkets the other day, with an entrance full of promotional stuff about how you get so much more for so much less if you shop with them, it struck me that they are not helping: they are really pushing this free lunch frame of mind - at a time when we really need to wean the public off it.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-new-car-series-1-episode-3.html.

Reference 2: https://www.webuyanycar.com/.

Reference 3: https://www.goalsfootball.co.uk/our-clubs/south-east/tolworth.

Reference 4: Britain should come clean about its water industry: The government must admit that higher investment means rising utility bills for customers - John Gapper, Financial Times - 2025.